Tadeusz laughed as the front door opened, and footsteps shuffled through the shared wall. Radek and Samil appeared around the corner, and the haughty Pole rose from the table and returned to his room.

“What’s her problem?” Sam asked, sitting in his vacated seat.

Andrew sighed, “Long day shopping,”

“I’ll be back,” said Radek, walking to the bedroom.

Sam rolled his eyes. “He’s going to go kiss his ass,”

“What did you do to him now?” asked Andrew.

“We visited my brother, Miro, today,” Sam said, his eyes smiling. “Teddy was supposed to go with us but was a no-show, so we went without him.”

Andrew knew there was history between Radeki and Tadeusz, recalling Cyril and Niko’s idiot French on his first night here.

Samil grabbed a ginger ale from the fridge.

“I got roped into a three-way with them once,” he whispered.

“I know,” Andrew droned.

“Did he tell you about it?” His lip curled. “What’d that bitch say?”

“He didn’t say anything.” Andrew studied the green can, Sam’s thick fingers masking its cartoonish white fairy. “I saw you go into the room with them my first night here,”

“Get out,” Sam said, apologetic. “Tadeshi makes me self-conscious.”

The stylish Pole emerged in one of his new suits, a sleek metal gray with a narrow pink tie. “Goodbye, Andrej,” he said, walking to the door.

“Bye, Tadeshi,” Sam called, and when the door slammed shut without a word in return, he snickered. “Bitchy bitchski,”

Andrew grinned. “I got to pee.”

“Thanks for sharing,” Sam said, raising the can.

Andrew ventured over the narrow rug, recalling how Niko had led him down the hall that night. The bathroom wasn’t much bigger than the shared hovel at Saint Mark’s, but its scale-covered shower door and cracked pink tiles felt safer.

Dirty laundry filled the basket inside the tub, and clean clothes dangled on a hastily strung clothesline across the open window. White boxer briefs hung alongside some socks, the word ‘DEISEL’ stitched in black along the waistband. Black seams outlined the jock pocket, and the fabric felt soft on the back of his hand.

Andrew gathered it in his fingers and brought his nose to it. The detergent scent wasn’t flowery but spiced with the same aroma Sash carried the first night they met.

Laughter peeled out from the hall, making Andrew recoil. Cracking the door an inch revealed Samil’s discarded pants by the first bedroom door.

Whispers found his ears as he slipped past. Radek’s naked body flashed into view, his mouth clamped over Sam’s, his bony hip sinking into his pliable flesh. Andrew stumbled down the hall, sickened by his growing arousal.

The front door opened before he got hold of the knob.

Niko’s arms surrounded him, falling away when his dark eyes noticed Andrew’s erection. Then, that dumb smirk transformed into something dangerous.

“You were waiting for me, eh?”

Andrew pushed against him. “I need to go.”

“You need to come,” laughed Niko softly.

A gentle hand found around the nape of his neck and guided him down the hall. Hips pressed into his lower back before he fell onto the day bed, its brass frame creaking under their weight.

The hem of his shirt entered his mouth, and he bit down on it as Niko’s heavy body blanketed him. Persistent lips found Andrew’s nipple, and hands slipped between his skin and the mattress, groping his buttocks. Niko’s tongue left a trail of spit down his ribcage, and Andrew relished the wetness until he opened his eyes, and the plastered ceiling above morphed into the top of his car.

“Please stop,” he whispered.

Eager hands yanked down his waistband.

Andrew tried to crawl out from under, but Niko held on tight.

“Let me go,” he cried, kicking free and falling to the floor.

Niko stared down at him, face ashen and confused.

Andrew gained his footing, fixing his clothes as he raced down the hall. His footfalls echoed over the painted concrete and chipped steel in the stairwell. He pushed through the heavy doors and into the lobby, colliding with another body.

Sash stood there with his arms raised and his blue eye glazed with concern. Andrew caught his frightened reflection in the man’s blackened orb and then noticed an elderly couple standing by the mailboxes, watching him.

Dazed, he didn’t remember the train ride to Manhattan.

Andrew trod over the hotel’s checkered floor.

“You got phone messages,” the hefty clerk yelled from behind the plexiglass, holding up three neon post-it notes. “You ain’t got a message service here, okay?”

Andrew marched to his cordoned booth and snatched the neon-colored square from his grasp. He darted up the stairs, undoing the combination lock outside and then securing the interior padlocks after shutting his door.

“It’s over, it’s over, it’s over,” Andrew chanted, sinking to the floor with his head in his hands. “He can’t hurt you. He can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t hurt you because you—”

Clarity struck like a hammer.

Andrew reached up and felt the lowest hanging padlock, number five, three more than last month. He brought his hand down, and in it was a revolver, its barrel sheathed by a condom slick with his blood.

Turning your ass out will be easy… Anger consumed him. He pointed the sheathed gun at the back of the bastard’s head. Then, as if someone switched on a light, his room materialized. He stared past his hand, now shaped into a finger pistol.

The violin case’s edge peeked out from under the bed. Its strings called out in his mother’s voice, begging him to come home.